Masa Madre:  Lucia Meneses

Photography By Alfredo Añez | August 31, 2019

Lucia Meneses

Lucia Meneses, 28, didn’t grow up baking cookies or cakes. As a child in a Cuban family in Westchester, she remembers playing with pizza dough her grandma gave her, but baking? No. After graduating from the University of Florida with an English degree, she moved back to Miami wondering what to do next. She got a copy of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson, a lavishly illustrated and detailed guide to making traditional country loaves and followed two breadmaking blogs, The Perfect Load and Girl Meets Rye. “I had no idea that bread could be so complicated,” she says. “I became obsessed.”

Meneses made her sourdough starter and kept a journal of her baking efforts. “Once you make your first loaf, you’re hooked,” she says. “It’s a good, productive activity. It’s therapeutic.” Her career took her to HistoryMiami and then to Vizcaya, where she became the village baker, bringing loaves to her colleagues. Vizcaya’s Rebecca Peterson encouraged Meneses to set up her own business, a CSB – Community-Supported Bakery – in which customers sign up for regular bread deliveries. “So few people have a driving passion and are good at what they do,” says Peterson. “Lucia’s so committed. And her bread is delicious.” Masa Madre, Spanish for sourdough, was born.

Meneses teaches a class in making scones at Montgomery Botanical Garden

To hone her skills, she attended a 3-day intensive workshop making bagels and pies with Tara Jensen of Smoke Signals Bakery in Marshall, North Carolina (Jensen now offers workshops and retreats in central Appalachia). She also worked briefly at two of South Florida’s best-known artisan bakeries, Madruga Bakery and Zak the Baker, where she reported daily at 4am to shape bread – 1,000 loaves a day. “You learn a lot. It’s intense. Friday was challah day. I was covered in flour! I loved it,” she recalls. But a fulltime gig working in a bakery was not for her. “This craft is personal for me.”

Meneses has found a niche of sorts in her current position as school programs manager at Dade Heritage Trust, set up to preserve the county’s architectural, environmental and cultural heritage. Last year, they kicked off Baking in Historic Places, a quarterly baking class that takes place in different county venues. The venues inspire what dishes she teaches – at the Kampong, she used their bananas to make banana bread, and at Montgomery Botanical Center, her scones reflected Nell Jennings’ love for tea.

For Meneses, just as sourdough is a form of cultural preservation, this program represents a happy marriage of food and historical preservation. “To me, baking is not working in a bakery. It’s all about sharing with the community. It begs to be shared.”